The Mekong Delta - Blogabond

After five incredible days in Ho Chi Minh City, I've carried on to another city: Can Tho. Can Tho is located in southern Vietnam in the region known as the Mekong Delta.
I took what amounted to a four hour bus ride from HCMC to Can Tho yesterday, found a cheap guest house (less than USD $7) and went to bed. I didn't even bother caring about the ants crawling on the bed because I was so worn out from my week of mostly all-nighters.
Okay. Rewind....
Ho Chi Minh City was a blast. Through the travel based website, Couchsurfing, I was able to find instant friends, which made "solo" traveling quite easy.
The second day of my stay I took a cyclo tour of the city. For those of you who don't know what a cyclo is, it's a tall bike with a rickety chariot-esque seat in front of it. My driver toured me around for nearly five hours. I saw many pagodas and many beautiful Buddha's. At one pagoda, a monk showed me the proper way to bow/pray to Buddha.
My tour ended at the War Reminents Museum where I saw some of the horrific pictures of the results from Agent Orange. I must say, it's incredibly awkward going in there as an American and it was even more uncomfortable leaving and going back to my 60-year-old cyclo driver who no doubt experienced the war first-hand. Fortunately, I haven't experienced anyone with grudges against American's and usually find them to be excited to meet an American backpacker.
That evening I found out about a birthday party of a French traveler. A group of 10 of us met up for dinner and then ended up at the infamous "Apocalypse Now" Bar (as seen in the movie...you guessed it, Apocalypse Now).
That evening lasted until 7:00 a.m. or so as one of the French guys and I stayed in the park to watch/join in on the morning aerobics session that started up before dawn. We strolled through the rest of the park to watch the tango dancers and the Tae Kwon Do practice.
As it was then about 6 a.m. it was time for us to find a quaint cafe to drink some of Vietnam's famous coffee. We sat there for about an hour speaking in broken English with some local taxi drivers and moto drivers...then it was bed time.
As is to be expected, the next day was spent in a haze. We all woke up around noon and found ourselves a "Frech cafe," which is actually a Korean pastry chain called "Tous Les Jours."
(Sidenote: Just now a full-on Communist truck drove by playing what I think is the Vietnamese national anthem and toting a poster of Ho Chi Minh.)
On day four me and my group of 4 Francophones went on a day-trip to the town of Cu Chi. This small village is was a famous stronghold of the Vietnamese War (which, by the way, they refer to as the American War).
We started our tour with a propaganda-filled video about mostly the "American devils" and then we got a tour of the tunnels where the locals would hide in, cook in and shoot from. We walked only maybe 30 meters through the tunnels and that was more than enough. They said that there were breathing holes only every 5 meters and although the man joked that they were air conditioning holes, my Lord was it ever hot in there. Also, they apparently had to widen the tunnels for fat American tourists--could've used a bit more space as it was.
That night we met with the French travelers' Canadian friend and spent the night sleeping under the full moon on his rooftop. This night too was a long one, and we didn't go to bed until after 6:00 a.m., after breakfast and after the roosters shut up a bit.
That takes me up to now.
This morning I woke up at 5:30 and found a moto to the famous floating markets. I walked down a small road until I found a riverside, thatched-roof cafe. A man saw me approach and without saying anything signaled for me to follow him. He took me to a family's one-room house on the river and woke up the mother and daughter who inhabited it.
The mother led me onto her small, wooden boat and motored me around the market place. Possbly 15 minutes into my tour, a man selling beverages tied his boat to ours and made me a cup of hot, sweet coffee. I bought my boat driver some juice and we carried on. The tour lasted about an hour, but I plan to take a longer one in a couple of days as the Canadian backpackers I just met told me about their 8-hour tour and it seems I'd be stupid to miss it.
As for now, I'm still sitting in the internet cafe. Small lizards cover the walls and Buddha representations surround me. I'm going to kill time journaling and exploing the city until my host gets into town. Tonight, I'll stay with a Vietnamese girl, Angela, and her family. Tomorrow, Angela will take me on a bike tour of the countryside.

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Nomadic Movements Of An Itinerant on May 9, 2009 from Can Tho, Vietnam

from the travel blog: Nomadic Movements Of An Itinerant

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